Death by Fondue
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: With the advantage of hindsight, John realized that he probably should've known something was wrong the first time he'd noticed he hadn't seen Rodney for more than five minutes.


Death By Fondue

Category: Humor (verging on the crack), gen

Rating: PG to PG-13, language

Summary: With the advantage of hindsight, John realized that he probably should've known something was wrong the first time he'd noticed he hadn't seen Rodney for more than five minutes. i _But it's a party /i _, he'd thought. i _He's probably out there having fun /i _, he'd thought. God, he must have been more drunk than he'd thought.

Notes: Do Wraith breathe? Ah, it's redundant enough, I don't care.

lj-cut text"We totally killed a Wraith!" 

(-)

With the advantage of hindsight, John realized that he probably should've known something was wrong the first time he'd noticed he hadn't seen Rodney for more than five minutes. i _But it's a party_, /i he'd thought. i _He's probably out there having fun_, /i he'd thought. God, he must have been more drunk than he'd thought.

Anyway, because he'd managed to rationalize Rodney's absence away, he didn't notice the scientist had disappeared until the moment he came back, spattered with at least four different colors of muck and glaring at him with an especially passionate fury.

"Oh, yes, I'm not dead, by the way, thanks for caring," he snapped. "I mean, just because I was _gone_ for an hour or three wouldn't mean you'd have any reason to think something might have i _happened /i _-- oh, god, no, never in i _Pegasus /i _ of all places, not with the i _Wraith /i _ to protect us, and--" He put a hand to his forehead. "There are just... no words for the immense hatred I bear toward you all right now. Does that have citrus?"

John followed his eyes to the punch bowl. "Uh, no."

"Does it have alcohol?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"Thank god." He strode over to the table, picked up a glass, and drank deeply.

John's gaze drifted back toward the east entrance, where that kid from before-- Shohesh-- had reappeared, covered in much the same multicolored mess and grinning his ass off. "That was i _awesome /i _," he said.

"I told you to stop saying that," Rodney snapped.

"But it was i _awesome /i _!"

Teyla and Ronon had disentangled themselves from the crowd, now; they shared a worried glance. "Uh," said John, " i _what /i _ was awesome?"

"We totally killed a Wraith!" the teenager enthused.

Rodney slapped a hand to his forehead, muttering something dark, most likely directed at the universe at large.

"You WHAT?!" yelled Duchess Shamara, bolting up from her chair.

"Uh." Shohesh paled. "But you don't have to tell Mom. Do you?"

"I can see how you wouldn't want your mother to know you got pulled into the i _Wraith-worshipping cult /i _," Rodney snapped.

"You WHAT?!" Shamara shrieked. "Young man, do you have any IDEA what your mother will do to me if you die under my fostering?!"

"Uh--"

"Because she told me! In detail! And showed me her weapons! How i _dare /i _ you nearly get yourself killed during my watch?! Couldn't you wait three more weeks?!"

"It was all Korma's fault!" Shohesh cried. "He was going to sell us all out to the Wraith so he could be sure he'd live!"

"...And this is supposed to lessen my anger at your involvement, why?"

Shohesh flushed red. "He told me it was extra shikan practice, and by the time I figured out what he was rambling about, we'd kind of already taken him prisoner." He jerked a hand toward Rodney.

"Fantastic. Now you're taking ambassadors hostage. I wonder what method your mother will use to kill me?"

"But I didn't i _stay /i _ with him!" Shohesh cried. "Tell her, mister."

"Oh, good lord." Rodney rolled his eyes and drained the rest of his punch. "Yes, he's telling the truth, he was, eventually, helpful."

"And we killed a Wraith."

"Wait," said John. "So they kidnapped you from the party..."

"And locked me in a cell, yes, apparently as a snack for the Wraith to accompany the banquet the idiots created--"

" i _That's /i _ where all the quiosh went," Duchess Shamara realized. "That son of a bitch."

"Oh, and remember that girl who kept bothering me before?" Rodney turned his glare toward Teyla.

"The one who was not allowed to marry the boy she loved... that you told to 'shut up, stop whining, and just make up her damn mind'?" Teyla queried.

"Yes. And apparently that was i _not /i _ the least helpful comment I could have made, thank you very much--"

"Oh, yeah!" Shohesh brightened. "That was i _awesome /i _. I was trying to tell Kesh that this plan was stupid, and he said 'What else do I have to do?', and then Rana came in, shoved a knapsack at him, and told him they were eloping to Riala, unless he had something better to do. So then it was just me, Rikan, and Korma, and you know Rikan wouldn't move his fat ass to do anything unless you paid him, so that really helped."

"Hell, Rana and Kesh eloped?" Shamara pushed her hair out of her face. "Dear Lady, after your mother kills me, Kor and Shimika will dance on my ashes..."

"So then Korma told me to go get the prisoner, and I said I wouldn't, and he hit me and opened the door himself, and Mister Whats-his-name here had set a freaking i _booby trap /i _ with a i _spear /i _ and oh my i _Lady_ /i it was--"

"Awesome," Rodney muttered with him, hand still to his head. "Couldn't someone give him some i _vocabulary /i _ lessons?"

"Seriously, he'd like broken apart the bed and shattered the bedpan and it was like a i _spear /i _, it totally hit him in the chest and he was all 'Argh!' and I was like 'Hah!' and whats-his-name was all 'eek, yeah, trying to run away now'."

"You screamed," Rodney said, with unusually calm precision, "like a girl." And he ladled himself another glass.

"Oh, I did NOT!"

"Huh," said Ronon. "That does sound pretty cool."

"Let's not encourage him, all right?"

"But anyway it didn't kill him yet," Shohesh resumed, looking regretful, "and he still had the weapons, and he brought us to that hall and then the _Wraith_ was there. And it went on about 'Atlantis' and 'your petty victories' and 'your small genius will not avail you this time, Doctor' and it was really a relief when Korma interrupted him with his death."

"True," Rodney conceded, still sipping.

"So then it was just him and me and the Wraith. So then I attacked it--"

"--like an idiot--"

"--and it threw me across the room and attacked him and he stabbed it in the face with a fork and somehow he got it over to the cheese fountain--"

"He stole the cheese fountain too?! That son of a bitch!"

"--and he got its head under," Shohesh continued, with a brief glare at the Duchess for the interruption, "and I came over and helped him hold it down, and then when it stopped moving he shot it a lot with that metal thing."

John stared at Rodney. "You're not seriously telling me..."

"Death by fondue," Rodney confirmed, and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"You drowned... the Wraith... in melted cheese," said Teyla, staring.

"I think I gotta agree with the kid," said Ronon. "That i _is /i _ pretty awesome."

"See? What have I been telling you!" Shohesh beamed.

"And then we burned the body, just in case, and walked home through the mud," said Rodney. "Hence the fourth color on my shirt and most of the alcohol."

"Great, there goes the cheese fountain," muttered the Duchess. "Sorry bastard."

"When can we go home again?" Rodney asked, the plea obvious in his voice.

"Uh. Well, we could miss the rest of the party... so that we can go home and explain what's just happened... to everyone..." John raised an eyebrow.

"...Point taken. You people do have some sort of running water, right?"

"No, we have only applied the principles of plumbing to our cheese fountains." The Duchess rolled her eyes. "Of course, you just killed our Minister of Infrastructure, so if something goes wrong, you're on your own."

"He kidnapped me and tried to feed me to a Wraith!!"

"Easy, easy! I'm not saying you were wrong! I'm just saying we don't have another plumber!" The Duchess raised her hands in supplication. "Which is going to be very inconvenient when your mother gets the pipes all clogged with my intestines."

"Really, why don't we just not ever tell her? Ever?" Shohesh suggested. "I mean, she's gonna kill me too if she hears."

"Oh, she will hear, you naive little boy. She always hears. I should update my will."

Rodney downed the rest of his glass and started toward the guestrooms, stride determined and slightly tipsy, even though there really wasn't that much alcohol in the punch.

"Hey." John caught his arm as he walked by. "You okay?"

Rodney glared at him. "I just got kidnapped, killed a man, drowned a Wraith in fondue, walked half an hour back with a hormone-crazed teenager who thinks all of that was 'awesome', and learned that in the time it took me to do all of those things, no one even realized I was gone."

"I realized you were gone," John offered, lamely. "I just thought you were... having fun."

"In what parallel universe do I experience any pleasure at parties? Wait, never mind, I think we know. I don't have fun at parties. I don't go out of sight for hours on alien worlds. And I don't... oh, I don't even know. I don't know what I'm trying to-- no. No, I am i _not okay /i _. At all." Rodney pulled his arm away and kept walking. "Oh, and if anyone could check on me in a couple hours, make sure that Wraith-worshipping idiot doesn't come back from the dead and try to kill me with my own spear, that would be really thoughtful."

"...Crap," John muttered, when he was out of earshot.

The Duchess glanced at them. " i _He /i _ feels unappreciated."

"He may have reason," Teyla answered, quietly.

"Well," said the Duchess. "As I have been so recently viscerally reminded--" She shot a mild glare at Shohesh. "Life is short, in this world."

John blinked at her.

"What I mean is, I'd rectify that," she said. "And soon. We fall into the habit of taking things for granted so easily... like intact vital organs..."

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually disembowel people," Shohesh said, looking pale.

"Let's not take chances." She waved at the crowd. "On with the party!"

"...I'm gonna make sure the Wraith burned okay," said Ronon, and headed out.

"I think I will talk to Rodney," said Teyla. "In case that man does come back. It's not unheard of." She left.

Shohesh walked up to him, sighing. "My mother is going to make my life a living hell," he said, and slouched beside him.

There with the wayward teenager, John silently updated his list of "Mistakes I Will Never Make Again".

(-)


End file.
